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Has there ever been a film where the music more perfectly suited
the action than in Carol Reed's "The Third Man"? The score was
performed on a zither by Anton Karas, who was playing in a Vienna beerhouse one
night when Reed heard him. The sound is jaunty but without joy, like whistling
in the dark. It sets the tone; the action begins like an undergraduate lark and
then reveals vicious undertones.

The
story begins with a spoken prologue ("I never knew the old Vienna, before
the war. . ."). The shattered postwar city has been divided into French,
American, British and Russian zones, each with its own cadre of suspicious
officials. Into this sinkhole of intrigue falls an American innocent: Holly
Martins (Joseph Cotton), alcoholic author of pulp Westerns. He has come at the
invitation of his college chum Harry Lime. But Lime is being buried when
Martins arrives in Vienna.

How
did Lime die? That question is the engine that drives the plot, as Martins
plunges into the murk that Lime left behind. Calloway (Trevor Howard), the
British officer in charge, bluntly says Lime was an evil man, and advises Holly
to take the next train home. But Harry had a girl named Anna (Alida Valli), who
Holly sees at Lime's grave, and perhaps she has some answers. Certainly Holly
has fallen in love with her, although his trusting Yankee heart is no match for
her defenses.

"The
Third Man" (1949) was made by men who knew the devastation of Europe at
first hand. Carol Reed worked for the British Army's wartime documentary unit,
and the screenplay was by Graham Greene, who not only wrote about spies but
occasionally acted as one. Reed fought with David O. Selznick, his American
producer, over every detail of the movie; Selznick wanted to shoot on sets, use
an upbeat score and cast Noel Coward as Harry Lime. His film would have been
forgotten in a week. Reed defied convention by shooting entirely on location in
Vienna, where mountains of rubble stood next to gaping bomb craters, and the
ruins of empire supported a desperate black market economy. And he insisted on
Karas' zither music ("The Third Man Theme" was one of 1950's biggest
hits).

Reed
and his Academy Award-winning cinematographer, Robert Krasker, also devised a
reckless, unforgettable visual style. More shots, I suspect, are tilted than
are held straight; they suggest a world out of joint. There are fantastic
oblique angles. Wide-angle lenses distort faces and locations. And the bizarre
lighting makes the city into an expressionist nightmare. (During a stakeout for
Lime, a little balloon man wanders onto the scene, and his shadow is a monster
three stories high). Vienna in "The Third Man" is a more particular
and unmistakable *place* than almost any other location in the history of the
movies; the action fits the city like a hand slipping on a glove.

Then
there are the faces: Joseph Cotton's open, naive face contrasts with the
"friends" of Harry Lime: the corrupt "Baron" Kurtz (Ernst
Deutsch); the shifty Dr. Winkel (Erich Ponto), the ratlike Popescu (Siegfried
Breuer). Even a little boy with a rubber ball looks like a wizened imp. The
only trusting faces are those of innocents like the hall porter (Paul
Hoerbiger) who tells Holly, "There was another man . . . a third man. .
." and the beefy Sgt. Paine (Bernard Lee), Calloway's aide, who levels the
drunken Holly with a shot to the chin and then apologizes. Even the resident
exiles are corrupt; Crabbin (Wilfrid Hyde-White), the head of the discussion
group, chatters about culture while smoothly maneuvering his mistress out of
sight through doors and up stairs.

As
for Harry Lime: He allows Orson Welles to make the most famous entrance in the
history of the movies, and one of the most famous speeches. By the time Lime
finally appears we have almost forgotten Welles is even *in* the movie. The
sequence is unforgettable: the meow of the cat in the doorway, the big shoes,
the defiant challenge by Holly, the light in the window, and then the shot,
pushing in, on Lime's face, enigmatic and teasing, as if two college chums had
been caught playing a naughty prank.

The
famous speech comes during an uneasy ride on a giant Ferris wheel; at one
point, Lime slides open the door of the car they are riding in, and Holly
uneasily wraps an arm around a post. Harry tries to justify himself: "You
know what the fellow said: In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had
warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo
da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love--they had
500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo
clock." (Greene says this speech was written by Welles.)

The
emotional heart of the movie is Holly's infatuation with Anna, who will love
Harry and be grateful to him no matter what she learns. The scenes between
Holly and Anna are enriched by tiny details, as when they visit Harry's
apartment and she opens a drawer without looking--because she already knows
what will be inside. Or the way she sometimes slips and calls Holly
"Harry." Everyone in the movie has trouble with names. Holly calls
Calloway "Callahan," and Dr. Winkle insists on "VINK-ell!"
And the name on Harry Lime's tombstone is wrong, too.

The
chase sequence in "The Third Man" is another joining of the right
action with the right location. Harry escapes into the sewer system like a
cornered rat, and Reed edits the pursuit into long, echoing, empty sewer
vistas, and closeups of Lime's sweaty face, his eyes darting for a way out.
Presumably there would be no lights in the Vienna sewers, but there are strong
light sources just out of sight behind every corner, throwing elongated
shadows, backlighting Harry and his pursuers.

The
final scene in "The Third Man" is a long, elegiac sigh. It almost did
not exist. Selznick and Greene originally wanted a happy ending. (Greene
originally wrote, ". . . her hand was through his arm"). Reed
convinced Greene he was wrong. The movie ends as it begins, in a cemetery, and
then Calloway gives Holly a ride back to town. They pass Anna walking on the
roadside. Holly asks to be let out of the jeep. He stands under a tree, waiting
for her. She walks toward him, past him, and then out of frame, never looking.
After a long pause, Holly lights a cigarette and wearily throws away the match.
Joseph Cotten recalled later that he thought the scene would end sooner. But
Reed kept the camera running, making it an unusually long shot, and absolutely
perfect.

"The
Third Man" reflects the optimism of Americans and the bone-weariness of
Europe after the war. It's a story about grownups and children: Adults like
Calloway, who has seen at first hand the results of Lime's crimes, and children
like the trusting Holly, who believes in the simplified good and evil of his
Western novels.

"The
Third Man" is like the exhausted aftermath of "Casablanca." Both
have heroes who are American exiles, awash in a world of treachery and black
market intrigue. Both heroes love a woman battered by the war. But
"Casablanca" is bathed in the hope of victory, while "The Third
Man" already reflects the Cold War years of paranoia, betrayal and the
Bomb. The hero doesn't get the girl in either movie--but in
"Casablanca," Ilsa stays with the resistance leader to help in his
fight, while in "The Third Man" Anna remains loyal to a rat. Yet
Harry Lime saved Anna, a displaced person who faced certain death. Holly will
never understand what Anna did to survive the war, and Anna has absolutely no
desire to tell him.

Of
all the movies I have seen, this one most completely embodies the romance of
going to the movies. I saw it first on a rainy day in a tiny, smoke-filled
cinema on the Left Bank in Paris. It told a story of existential loss and
betrayal. It was weary and knowing, and its glorious style was an act of
defiance against the corrupt world it pictured. Seeing it, I realized how many
Hollywood movies were like the pulp Westerns that Holly Martins wrote: naive
formulas supplying happy endings for passive consumption. I read the other day
that they plan to remake "The Third Man." Do you think Anna will cave
in to Holly--or will she remain true to her bitter cynicism and unspeakable
knowledge?

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